


A Deamon's Paridise

by BabbleMonster



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Action, Drama, F/M, Fantasy, Game Spoilers, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabbleMonster/pseuds/BabbleMonster
Summary: Just fooling around telling the story of the principal Warden of the game Dragon Age : Origins.Not a faithful re-telling. Many scenes will be skipped and added. Primarily meant as a dramaexamining the mage/magic morality dilemmas presented in the games, though heavy romantic themes throughout.





	1. A Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DA:O Mage opening (harrowing) [part 1/?]

 

#  CHAPTER ONE : A Paradise

 

**[ Characters: F.Warden ("Lunette Surana") | OC Templar ("Jacob") ]**

 

 

 

_____Cullen settled down beside her, running his fingers through his short hair in that adorable unsure way of his. His mouth worked, forming words that were whipped away in an unfelt wind. She smiled, leaning towards him - enthralled in the message that couldn't escape his lips. She basked in this; his attention on her unabashed, the warmth of the sunlight on her skin, the stiff carpet of grass that pillowed her seat, the quiet, the peace, and the heavenly solitude.

She had been here countless times. This was her own private hide-away, a place where nobody could enter except those she had invited - which she rarely did. There had been a time when this meadow had been a raucous place, filled with the laughter and songs of children. She didn't think back on those days much. Not anymore.

Her sanctuary wasn't very large; less than a hundred paces from one side to the other. They sat on the crest of a gentle hill near the center of it. Bordered on three sides by thick forest, a mass of dark green leaves and needles that grew too thick to pass through, it was impossible to intrude on this place. The edge of the boundary was fringed with knee high grass, peppered with elfroot that filled the clearing with its spicy fresh sent when stirred by the breeze. The fourth side touched a crystal-clear lake that glittered in the sunlight like a bowl full of sapphires and glass. The beach sloped slowly into the water, tinged a pale orange color from the clay rich sand and littered with small smooth rocks. Their horses, two identical brown beasts that ambled about lazily in the shallows, carried picnic supplies in the packs attached to their saddles.   

She knew this place intimately. It was more her home than anywhere she had truly lived.

Though, of course, it wasn't real.

She tangled her fingers into the grass beneath her hands, itching to do the same to his hair as Cullen turned to watch the horses, a smile twisting his lips and an earnest blush warming his cheeks. But he was just a phantom; a figment of rampant imagination and lucid dreaming within the fade. Like the horses that splashed lazily in the still water, he wouldn't have any substance to him if she tried to touch him. Because Cullen had rarely said more than twelve sentences to her in an entire week, his image in her dreams couldn’t speak and likewise she’d never touched a man or horse so both were specters to her hand.

She could conjure substantial imaginings, of things she hadn't _actually_ experienced, when she slept but she always woke from such dreams exhausted and plagued by a headache that would last for days. Thus, she'd learned to settle for these partial companions - only as real as a painting.

His costume was similar to what he'd worn the day he'd arrived at the tower; a plain cotton tunic, dark brown trousers that hugged his legs, and well worn, sturdy boots. Knight-Commander Greagoir said you could tell a lot about a man based on how he cared for his boots. His were plain, stout leather - nothing fancy, but well cared for and clean. He still wore those boots sometimes, when he wasn't on duty. He was younger than most of the other Templars serving at the Ferelden Circle. She was pretty sure he was eighteen, though she hadn't gathered the courage to ask for certain. She had been speaking with him though. It had been First Enchanter Irving's suggestion...

Well. That was stretching the truth a bit. First Enchanter Irving had told her to think of the Templars as people, and learn who they were. He had, of course, meant it as an exercise to expel her fear of them and prepare her for a lifetime of circle politics - not an invitation to grow nearly obsessed with infatuation over one of them.

It had begun innocently enough, with Irving challenging her to learn each of their names. Knight Commander Greagoir was easy. Everyone knew him. Then there were Phillip, Jacob, Bran and Devin who had rotating shifts standing at the entrance of the tower. New recruits often got stuck with that post, since it was the most boring. It was where she’d met Cullen, though he hadn’t been stuck with that post long. Bran had come only months after him. Philip and Jacob were both lay-abouts that volunteered for the post, and found her annoying. They ignored her for the most part when she approached them. The other templars found Devin annoying so he kept getting rotated back to the duty, and though he was friendly his stories were tiringly boastful and he did complain quite a bit. Bran seemed to appreciate her visits, as Cullen had, and she made a point of spending at least a few minutes with him when he got stuck with the post, though he was dismissive of her questions about himself or the world beyond the giant door he adorned.

Cullen, on the other hand, had been engaging and warm. Ignorant of the gossip of her peers, he had been respectful and kind to her, indulging her questions and smiling brilliantly when she spoke his name. She still returned her greeting if they passed each other in the halls, though she craved more.

She sighed and reclined back in the grass, looking up to the clear blue sky. This was an exercise in stupidity. Irving had suspected that she had feelings for Cullen and warned her that nothing could come of it. His warning had been bleak and indisputable, and it made her heart sick even now to think of it. She’d assured him that she had only been exploiting his newness to build a repertoire, arguing that the best route to maintaining mage rights was to do as he had with Greagoir and build a respectful working relationship with the Templars.  

She fisted her hands furiously.

Why couldn’t she just stop this nonsense? What was the point of torturing herself with fantasies of things that could never happen?

She turned her head to study his profile, and bit her lip.

Because she was lonely. She was constantly surrounded by other people. There wasn’t a shred of privacy in the tower. They weren’t even allowed to have locks on the trunks where they kept their possessions. They ate communally, slept communally, studied in groups, prayed in groups, shared a single dressing and washing room for each gender. Even if you sat alone in the corner of the library you were watched by the templars. You couldn’t have a single unguarded or earnest moment with another person. You could never be too vulnerable, never too close.

Each of them was a person shipwrecked at sea, desperately clinging to a piece of driftwood. They bumped against each other in the surf and some clung to each other – only to be torn apart by brutal politics or without any explanation at all.

And still she ached to reach out to someone. To cling to another.

He turned to her, laughing, his brown eyes twinkling. She could hear that even here. She was pretty sure he was the first Templar she’d ever heard laugh while he’d known she was in the room. It was a good laugh, earnest. She smiled and he leaned down towards her. She felt her breath catch in her throat even though she knew this wasn’t real -

A gauntleted had shook her shoulder and the image in front of her faded like an image viewed in the reflection of a steam-covered mirror. She heard a voice. Not the right one, not his…

Was that Jacob?

“Lunette, rise. The First Enchanter has summoned you.”


	2. A Summons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DA:O Mage opening (harrowing) [part 2/?]

 

#  CHAPTER TWO : Summoned

 

**[ Characters: F.Warden ("Lunette Surana") | OC Templar ("Jacob") ]  
[ OC Templar ("Devin")]**

 

 

 

_____Lunette steped into the darkness of the dressing chamber, her heart beating fast as she abandoned the meager light of the Jacob's candle. She couldn’t help imagining that the gloom hid a shade, waiting to embrace her. She could almost _smell_ it – the haunting scent of smoke and rot.

She turned, seting her cloths down on the vanity she knew to be there, and sought her reflection in the mirror. Of course, her eyes couldn’t find it. The glass reflected only a black void. She shrugged out of the formless sleeping robe, letting it fall to her feet in a heap. Naked, she could feel the glass’ gaze upon her.

She shivered, as much from fear as the cold that assailed her.

Spring had come back to Ferelden and, when she occasionally peaked out the windows on the upper levels, she could see the world thawing outside; the snow receding to reveal the mud and twigs of a world that would soon begin returning to life. It meant nothing to the tower. The ancient fortress was always frigid, spiteful.

It remembered another time and another name - spoken last by the tongues of humans hundreds of years dead. To the dwarven-forged stones of the tower it had only been a moment. Kinloch Hold had been a monument to honor as it had sheltered its beloved Avvar masters, proud and strong – until the Tevinter had come and brutalized it. It remembered the damage done; the breaking and occupation of its structure, the brutality visited upon its charges, and the suffering of its pride. The tower would never succor the bodies of mages. Not while it remembered what mages had done to _it_.

Most who lived here didn’t know the tower’s true name and it's past. But, to an elf (even one born of an alienage) history was sacred. She honored the tower's past. She felt a piece of it, even though it did not belong to her. She observed its vengeful callousness, and refused to shy from the malice upon the place. It seemed a fitting recompense to it, that it should now serve as a prison for mages.

This place was a part of her now, and she of it. Her skin had grown pale, having long ago been bleached of its honey tint by the shadows of the stone walls. Her hair was the ivory color of bone, as pallid in her youth as a woman standing upon her grave. Her body had grown into an awkward thinness through adolescence, her skin stretched tight over a body weakened from years spent at study. She felt a wraith, dead in all the ways save stillness.

The emptiness in the mirror before her beaconed. It was a vacuum; a portal welcoming her towards a blessed nothingness. She stretched out her fingers, reaching for its pitiless comfort.

Her touch found the familiar surface of the glass and she was shaken. She jerked her hand away, clutching it as if it had been burnt, Relief and chagrin crushing her heart between them as they warred inside her chest. 

She sucked in a breath and held it.

The fade’s touch on her mind had always been feverish – a madness that made her waking moments feel less real than her dreams. She griped onto her sanity stubbornly, allowing petulance to straighten her spine and still her quivering muscles. Her breath was the last to submit to her will, a quiet whimper escaping her trembling lips as she finally released the air from her burning lungs.

There would be time enough for delusion when no one waited upon her. Her mentor had summoned her, and she _refused_ to repay his consideration with neglect.

She slipped on the quilted robes of her rank, fastening the belts that hold it in place with familiar ease. Like any garment built to fit all bodies, it suited none. On her thin figure it sagged and bunched, exaggerating her adolescence to make her appear a child. Thankfully she was tall for her age, despite her elven blood, restoring to her some credibility of experience. She pinned her braided hair back in a frizzy bun, silently bemoaning the lack of time to paint her face or brush her hair. She often felt a fraud when she compared herself to the other women in the circle, who prided themselves on a perfect feminine appearance. Particularly on days like this, when it felt as if one of her ears leaked her thoughts into the fade, little rituals of vanity were a bastion for her confidence.

She slipped a pair of thin slippers over her feet and gathered her fallen cloths off the floor. She clutched them to her chest and stepped back into the confines of the light the templar carried.

He still stood beside her bunk, his arms crossed and a scowl on his thick face. Jacob would probably be irritated to meet Andraste herself, but Lunette found herself looking down anyway. At least she didn’t blush, her blood still too sluggish from the cold to gather behind her cheeks.

She tossed her bedclothes into her trunk, and turned to wait with Jacob for the Templars standing guard at the dormitory entrance to unlock the door for them. Once they entered the halls they were completely alone. He didn’t speak as he struck off down the hallway, leading her further into the circle. She blew into her hands as she followed, staying close. Walking through the halls with just the clink of Jacob’s armor echoing and the shifting shadows cast by the flame of his candle made her uncomfortable, but she wouldn’t complain. It was common for Irving to send for her in the early hours of dawn (when he was busy with his ledgers and meetings) and she had expected this. Irving would be harried today, with the Grey Warden’s envoy expected to arrive sometime this afternoon.

She had been hoping that First Enchanter Irving would allow her to sit in on his meetings with the warden, and she turned her mind towards that thought while they began climbing the mountain of stairs between the Apprentice Chambers and the senior mages’ rooms on the third floor. Irving said he suspected the warden was coming in order to try and recruit more mages to help battle the darkspawn in the South. The king’s request for aid had suggested that another blight might be beginning, and the thought both terrified and thrilled her.

A blight was the best opportunity for freedom that she could imagine. Already the Knight-Commander had allowed for all the senior mages and a third of the full mages to answer the King’s call.

She had never been especially devout, to either the chantry or elven beliefs, but she had spent her life listening to their tales of Andraste and of darkspawn. She didn’t know what of those stories were true and what was hyperbole – but surely with a with a threat so bemoaned by both the Chantry and history, they would need to allow many mages to leave the circle and help fight the threat. A mage risked their life just to exist so close to the fade as to bring magic into this realm (or at least that was what Chantry proclaimed) so who would deny her the chance to see some of the world and aid it, even at the peril of violent death?

Knight-Commander Greagoir, of course, had dashed those hopes. He had forbidden any apprentice mages from going to help fight. He didn’t believe it was a blight at all – that the darkspawn had just happened to gather there in the wilds, where there were few men to hunt them. She suspected Irving believed the same - despite his arguments to the contrary.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost didn’t notice when they passed First Enchanter Irving’s room and stopped before two Templars that stood guard at the door to the Templar quarters. Jacob nodded to the others, and one of them opened the door for them.

She froze.

Her mind went blank – refusing to contemplate what reason could cause them to bring her here; refusing even to operate her heart and lungs. Pain welled up in her chest. She felt squeezed by an invisible hand – It strangled her. The heat of life seemed to seep again from her veins, accompanied by the familiar nausea and tingling numbness as her magic was purged from her with a motion by the Templar that stood by the open door.

The third Templar stepped behind her, a gauntleted hand grabbing her roughly by the arm. He shoved her forward, hauling her before him into the stairwell. The door shut with a thump behind them, and Lunnette choked out a terrified scream.

Well, her mind wanted it to be a scream. In her mind it **had** been a scream. In the confines of the stairway it was just a breathy squeak.

“Just come with us.” A voice hissed in her ear. Her mind was too panicked to place a name to the familiar tongue, “We don’t want to have to hurt you.”


	3. On Ceremony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DA:O Mage opening (harrowing) [part 3/?]

 

#  CHAPTER THREE : On Ceremony

 

**[ Characters: F.Warden ("Lunette Surana") | OC Templar ("Jacob") ]  
[ OC Templar ("Devin") | Templar "Cullen Rutherford"]  
[Knight-Commander "Greagoir" | First Enchanter "Irving"]**

  
  
  


_____Lunette was shoved through another door, and stumbled forward as the Templar holding her arm released her. She hadn’t screamed yet – though she wasn’t sure why. Her mind was buzzing with terror, her thoughts whirling about so fast she couldn’t seem to catch them.

She was ashamed – embarrassed to have been caught unawares, so deep in her own thoughts that she hadn’t seen this coming… But what _was_ this. She had heard stories of Templars abusing mages. Rapes, beatings, forced tranquility – but she hadn’t thought they happened here. That was why the first enchanter worked so hard to have a working relationship with the Knight-Commander, wasn’t it? To prevent such abuses from happening. To be sure that the Templars always saw mages as people, and didn’t mistreat and abuse them.

She caught herself on the stone floor, the sting of her hands slapping stone vibrating all the way up her arms. She didn’t have time to worry about the pain, scrambling to her feet to turn towards the man that had shoved her. She balled her hands into fists, and glared at him. She wasn’t sure what she could do to him in his plate. She was unarmed, still dispelled, and short of breath. Truth be told, she was near to panicking, but she was determined to fight him.

“Don’t make me force you the _whole_ way.” The Templar said in a hushed voice, his tone whiny, “I didn’t think you would make this much trouble for me, Lunette.”

“Devin?” She hissed, feeling despair and confusion overwhelm her. She began trembling, “What’s going on?”

He glanced over her shoulder, and leaned forward, cupping a hand to the mouth of his helm conspiratorially, “Harrowing.”

Her eyes went wide, and she bit her bottom lip. She wrapped her arms around herself, and looked over her shoulder the room she’d been brought to – which turned out to be another stairwell. Jacob was already nearly to the top, having not noticed they’d fallen behind.

She squeezed her fingertips into the flesh of her arms, pain flaring up beneath her hands. She could barely feel it as she dashed up the stairs to catch up to Jacob. She was lightheaded and breathless as she bound up the final steps, looking about with eyes that noticed very little.

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.” Greagoir’s voice – deep, full of meaning and threat. Her eyes were drawn to him, as he gestured her to walk towards the center of the room that the staircase had lead them to, “Thus spoke the Prophet Andraste as she cast out the Tevinter Emporium – ruled by mages who had brought the world to the edge of ruin.”

She swallowed hard, unable to muster even a sarcastic thought in response. Normally she could scarcely contain a quip at such stale, contrived lines. Her mind felt numb, emptied of everything except the thrill of fear. Greagoir gestured for her to stop, but continued pacing about the room himself. She noted another templar behind him, making four of them in the room including Greagoir, but couldn’t draw her eyes away from the Knight-Commander.

“Your magic is a gift, but it’s also a curse; for demons of the dream relm, the Fade, are drawn to you and seek to use you as a gateway into this world.” The words were ones that had been thrown in her face since she’d set foot inside the circle. They were drilled into each and every lesson. It was the reason the circle existed, why no mage was ever truly free.

She felt her blood stir in anger, warming her trembling hands and swelling within her chest. She bit down on her lip, thankful that her mind was still empty of words because her tongue burned to speak them.

Greagoir stopped in the center of the room, gesturing her attention towards a pedestal that stood there. She glared at it, unable to bring herself to move forward and peak at what it displayed. She jumped when she felt a hand touch her shoulder.

“This is why the harrowing exists.” Irving’s voice was soft, yet sure and steady. It reassured her, calming her frayed nerves, “The ritual sends you into the fade, and there you will face a demon, armed with only your will.”

She turned towards him, her mind racing as she looked into those familiar, sympathetic eyes. She whispered, her words like a prayer, though she hadn’t meant to speak her fear aloud, “What if I can’t defeat it.”

“It will turn you into an abomination, and the Templars will be forced to slay you.” Greagoir spoke the words with such cold pragmatism, that for a moment the implication didn’t fully set in. As it did, she felt her eyes widen and her hands begin to tremble again. It seemed a certainty that she would not escape this chamber. He waved her forward, impatient despite his calm tone, “This is lyrium, the very essence of magic and your gateway into the fade.”

She stared at the pale blue glow on top of that podium and felt herself begin to panic again. For a moment she wanted to beg them to make her tranquil, anything but foisting her aware and unarmed against a monster. The first enchanter squeezed her shoulder.

“The harrowing is a secret out of necessity, child. Every mage must go through this trial by fire. As we succeeded, so shall you.” She turned towards him, uncertainty still openly displayed in her face. He took his hand off her shoulder, taking her own cold hand in his gently, “Keep your wits about you and remember; the Fade is the realm of dreams, the spirits may rule it but your own will is real.”

She nodded, and though she jumped a little when Greagoir spoke again, panic didn’t raise up in her again, “The apprentice must go through this test **_alone,_** First Enchanter.”

She took a breath and took the few steps towards the pedestal, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. This was just another test, one that she had been training most of her life for. She was _good_ at tests. Pressure focused her, excited her. She’d never been the most talented or skilled mage, but she _was_ tenacious. Stubborn to a fault.

“You _are_ ready.” Greagoirs voice was softer, kinder than she had ever heard directed at her. She took a deep breath and plunged her fingers into the softly glowing liquid.

It burned. Not the way that fire did, but the way frost did; with tingling and pain that shot up her arm. She drew back, gritting her teeth against the pain and studying her glowing fingers, her mind racing with remembered readings about first aid. Clean the wound in cold water, ointment and bandage. No. This wasn’t cold magic gone awry. This was different. Her mind grew foggy and she felt her knees going weak. She stumbled back, trying to steady her feet, slowly slipping into unconsciousness. No curtain of darkness and comfortable oblivion greeted her. Instead, she was blinded and her eyes burned as if she stared at the sun. Tears stung her eyes, and she let them fall freely – though they did nothing to prevent the frostlike whiteness that crept across her vision.


End file.
